Silence and Snow

This morning, on my way to New Melleray, the black clods of newly turned soil show dark against the light dusting of snow. In the unharvested fields, the dusting lined each leaf of cornstalk, and whitened the lines between rows in the fields. It was a light snow, fluffy, the flakes were large and close enough to identify, like pulled tufts of cotton, filling the sky, but melting or hidden in tall grass. Later, through the Church window, I looked out into the enclosure and watched the snowfall white against the pines and firs. The thick fall of snow, like God’s blessings in this world, covered the bare ground around the firs, hiding its imperfections.

I wonder if that is why the first snowfall is so lovely. The snow creates a silence so complete, one can hear each flake as it lands. Silence is a gift I strive for. You would think, as I am alone most of the time, that I have more than enough of silence. But the world rages in my mind: rumors of war; my pregnant students; my students without food, shelter, parenting, or refusing the parenting offered.

You might wonder what all this has to do with the light dusting of snow we got today, 11/16, especially since its supposed to be 50 by the end of next week. It is all swirling around in my mind as I read from Esther De Waal’s book, The Way of Simplicity. She writes of the need to “escape from a world dominated by achievement and acquisition in all its many insidious forms,” then quotes Kierkegaard, “the characteristic of a saint is to will one thing.” That one thing of course is to give ourselves “all of a piece to God.”

To do so one reads and meditates, contemplates. And, as Bernard says, “The soul meditating in the woods would learn from branches and boulders the hidden meanings of Scripture just as well as in the scriptorium.” Thomas Merton says, “The love of Christ hides itself mysteriously in the inner nature of crated things, so that in all that is varied lies hidden He who is One and eternally identical, in all composite things…,” and we “should wait for things to yield up their presences, rock, old fences, roots.” And so I observe the snow.